More than 37,757 showed up to take in the new ballpark, which features a massive fire pit in left field and several in-stadium bars and restaurants. Stuart Groskreutz wrote a review of the place for the Stillwater Gazette last week and there’s a picture of today’s action available on SBNation’s Twinkie Town.

The Twins are hoping the new park, which looks like it could be a real gem, will provide enough revenue to justify the massive eight-year, $184 million contract extension that was handed to catcher Joe Mauer last weekend. So far, so good.

“The number one word we heard from people today was, ‘incredible,”‘
Twins spokesperson Kevin Smith told the Associated Press Saturday.

Oh, and for those interested in such things, Louisiana Tech won Saturday’s game 9-1.

Glad they got a nice day for it, but when El Nino powers down next year it’ll be thermodynamic business as usual up in the Boreal zones. I think the right place for that fire pit will be under the seats by then. Warm isn’t something you want to watch from a distance when you’re freezing your ass off.

I spend the winters here fishing for lake trout in the Boundary Waters at -35. 30 degrees feels BALMY, especially this time of year. If it’s warm enough to play, me and my kindred spirits will fill the place up and be perfectly comfy.

That’s one thing those below the Mason-Dixon line just aren’t able to understand, through no fault of their own. After four months of weather where double digits below zero is just a fact of life, temps above freezing are great for us here in Minnesota. Throw on an extra layer and go to the game! Now, the same 50 degrees in July would be ridiculous, but that’s unlikely.

I was also one of the 37,757 though I very much doubt more than 10,000 were ever in the stadium at more than one time. Most people came in for the $2 and then left about two innings later, just to get a peak around.
And the Gophers didn’t look all that good out there.

I didn’t make it down to the game yesterday, but they had an open house for season ticket holders last weekend. The ballpark is simply fantastic (I particularly like the great wood backed seats in the club level, alas, I’ll never be able to afford to sit there). As for the weather, as the guys above me already stated, 40-50 degrees in April is plenty warm after we’ve been subjected to a long cold winter.
Plus the forecast is for 70’s this week. Maybe it will hold on until April 12 when they officially open the ballpark.

You’re right, our ignorance of the joys of frostbite and hypothermia are not our fault. We’re all born with a certain amount of glycol in our bloodstreams, but if we’re not kept refrigerated – and worse, if we have fresh air, sunshine and watch them play two (did I just give away my age?) it turns to beer and leeches out of us, you know how. And whereas we can’t speak with any authority about multiple skiens of double digit below-zero temperatures, we can view the political landscape down here as pretty substantial evidence of double-digit IQs.
.
I’ve actually been to Minnesota in the summer. If it’s warm enough for Blandings Turtles, I suppose it’ll support an open air population of baseball fans – something else with which most of the population of Macondo apparently has little or no famkiliarity. It’s April and September, much less October (or well into November if you have to keep finding ways to thaw the field out in the postseason) that concerns me. And it’s not even those natives with Norwegian and Swedish genes I worry about; a couple of slugs of Aqavit and to hell with glycol; they could sit through a Bergman festival in polo shirts in their convertibles in January at the local drive-in and probably do. But the spectacle of a stadium half full of freeze-dried out of town fans with Ted Williams commemorative cracks in their heads would not be pretty, even with Tim McCarver to describe it.
.
All that notwithstanding, keep that zodiac tethered near your front porches, try to stay dry up there and keep back from the edge of the creek creek until May.